Chapter 19

Sitting in front of the vanity mirror, Shen Wanqing looked at the neatly folded wedding robe, frowning slightly. She stretched out her hand to follow the lines to stroke it inch by inch.

“My benefactor, please eat something first.”

An old lady pushed the door open to walk in, putting the hot tea and pastry cakes next to her. After she finished speaking, she walked around behind her and began to help fix her hair up into a bun while looking visibly moved as she said, “Thank you for helping my little girl, if the Mountain Demon is really eliminated, even if you make an old woman like me slave for you, I am willing to do so.

Shen Wanqing raised her head, glancing at the old lady behind her in the mirror, paused for a while, and then reached out to pat the back of her hand in a comforting manner: “This is originally what a demon eliminator should do, you don’t need to be so polite. I’ll change into the wedding robe myself, no need to worry about it.”

Having said that, the old lady’s eyes were still red and she kept thanking her without leaving. Shen Wanqing coaxed her for a long time before she stopped crying. After assisting her to sit down, the lady sat there while trembling. She also didn’t forget to push the cup of tea towards her: “My dear, the purple bamboo forest has a chilly atmosphere, and the road is difficult. Drink this to warm up your body.”

Shen Wanqing glanced at the steaming hot cup of tea, stretched out her hand to lift up the cup, took a sip, and said, “Thank you.”

The two chattered incessantly for a while before Shen Wanqing managed to send the crying old lady away.

The room finally became peaceful again.

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Ohld vbl sze zyeu bye xyel y hlau vlekswp cwd qsa blaplzq hlau nyalqwzzu yde ealo y nkddycya esv sd bla qsalblye.

These processes were cumbersome and meaningless. The only thing she could sense from this, was that they did not treat her as a counterfeit to bait the Mountain God.

But as a real sacrifice.

All this made Shen Wanqing feel that things were odd.

She couldn’t completely trust these villagers.

And at the moment, Ji Feichen and the others were not by her side.

According to the initial plan, Zeng Ziyun would stay and take care of Feng Yaoqing, while Ji Feichen and Xie Wuyan would go and guard near the temple.

Therefore, rather than rashly resisting these villagers who could either be friend or foe, it was better to let the plan continue on and join Ji Feichen and the others later.

Shen Wanqing changed into the wedding robe, put on the red veil, and was assisted to the palanquin.

The ride on the palanquin was very bumpy, accompanied by the constant beating of the gongs and drums, going straight towards their destination. The piercing sound was deafening, making the nerves in her head tense up in an instant, giving her a headache. She didn’t know if it was because of the sound of the gongs and drums, or because of the tea that had not been completely forced out.

Shen Wanqing felt the temperature around her keep decreasing, and the eerie cold airflow was rushing up from the soles of her feet. Obviously there was no wind, but the harsh cold air was strong and threatening, it mixed with the strong smell of blood and demonic energy, making one feel a dull pain from the bones.

It seems like she had entered the purple bamboo forest.

“Young lady, we have arrived.” The old lady’s voice rang within the palanquin from outside, “After the palanquin halts, I will help you to the front of the mountain temple, and then you have to go in by yourself. Kneel on the mat for a while, and the Mountain God will naturally come.”

Shen Wanqing: “Okay.”

When the palanquin fell to the ground, she was helped off and guided to the front of the door.

“Okay young lady, I can only guide you till here.” The old lady was about to leave.

“Wait.” Shen Wanqing suddenly shouted, she paused, then let out a laugh, “Old lady, give me a hug, thank you for guiding me.”

Of course the old lady would not refuse.

While the two of them hugged like this, Shen Wanqing took out the Sound Transmission Talisman hidden in her sleeve and stuck it behind her hair.

“Squeak—”

The temple door was pushed open.

The damp scent that hit her face was accompanied by a strong smell of rotting corpses, which made people feel nauseous.

Shen Wanqing took off the red veil and looked around.

Bones and corpses.

Most of the corpses had already decomposed, but she could still faintly decipher some of their faces. It didn’t seem as simple as the so-called ‘sacrifice of a girl’ every month, because based on the skeleton and body shape, they were mostly males.

In addition, a few talismans could be vaguely seen.

After careful identification, even though they had long been covered with fresh blood and dirt, she could still see that many of the corpses were dressed like demon eliminators or cultivators from all sorts of sects.

The situation was not right.

 So many cultivators died here, but the villagers had not mentioned a single word about it.

Shen Wanqing raised her hand, drew out the golden hairpin from her bun and held it in her hand. The sharp pin pushed against her palm, it could cut open a bloody wound at any moment.

She walked to the center of the temple and glanced at the mat in the middle.

The old lady had told her to kneel on it and wait.

And at this moment, the voice of the Sound Transmission Talisman came through—

“Can the ceremony begin now?”

“As soon as the five fools are sent to death, the Mountain God will definitely reward us greatly.”

“But I heard from the people in the town that this time the cultivators seem to have quite a background.”

“Don’t worry, these idiots drank the things we gave them early this morning, I saw it with my own eyes, their skills will definitely be affected. That is what the Mountain God gave me, how could it not work?”

Shen Wanqing frowned.

And at this moment, the sound in the Sound Transmission Talisman suddenly became fuzzy and unclear, and after a few intermittent screams, it stopped abruptly.

…Could it be that the talisman had been discovered?

But at the moment, this was not of importance.

Shen Wanqing looked at the mat.

Even if you couldn’t distinguish it clearly, you could still smell the strong bloody scent from this mat. It seems that countless cultivators had been deceived here by these villagers. They had followed the rituals to draw out the demon, and then they had been brutally killed.

Although this group of people were full of lies, there was one sentence they said that was right.

Doing what they said, could really bait out the demon. But with Ji Feichen’s protagonist halo, maybe he could really get rid of this demon, not to mention the existence of the BUG Xie Wuyan.

Shen Wanqing was quiet for a long time.

Then she turned and left.

Did they take her as a fool?

She was not as stubborn as the villagers, and in this case, she didn’t even want to bother to use herself as a living target to beat up this demon.

She was going to go beat up the villagers.

But as she went to the door to push it, the door did not open.

No matter what, Shen Wanqing still had some cultivation skills, even if the villagers had locked the door, she should still be able to push it open according to logic.

But the door didn’t budge at all, it could only be a demonic energy haunting it.

At the same time, a cold current leaped from behind, clinging to her back and running all the way up, like an invisible big hand, stroking her skin inch by inch, it was spine-chilling.

Shen Wanqing did not move, she tensed her back, slowly put down the hand pushing the door, and squeezed the hairpin in her hand.

It seemed that as soon as she had entered the door, she had been noticed.

“This group of idiots sent me a good thing.” The male voice seemed to be separated by thousands and thousands of layers of fog, it was clearly close to her ears, but it sounded indistinct.

He uttered these words, practically sticking close to Shen Wanqing’s ear, and his strange tone made her heart palpitate even more: “The little lady is quite smart, but being too smart is not a good thing.”

Shen Wanqing’s head was starting to hurt.

Although it did not seem to have a physical body, she felt that her body was being entangled by this strong demonic spirit that squeezed every inch of her skin and rendered her unable to move.

To tell the truth, this demon took its time and didn’t make a move, he seemed to be using all his energy to just slightly touch her body and talk strangely. He didn’t seem like he was going to kill or torture her, it was more like he was taking advantage of her.

Then she felt the big invisible hand moving towards the front of her body, moving upwards inch by inch along her lower abdomen.

 …It’s conclusive, this demon really was taking advantage of her.

This time, it was completely different to the Painted Skin Ghost. It was obvious that the demonic power was even more powerful and strong.

The entire temple was entangled in a thick black mist, as if it were about to burst open the temple at any time.

It stands to reason that at this point, Ji Feichen should have noticed things were wrong by now.

Shen Wanqing thought of what she had heard from the Sound Transmission Talisman, and frowned.

Could it be that Ji Feichen really got tricked and drank the tea given by the villagers, so he hadn’t realized things was wrong?

It was better to rely on herself than to rely on others.

She stabbed the golden hairpin into her flesh, and the blood dripped down the hairpin, blending in with the color of the wedding robe.

And at this moment—

“To be honest,” Xie Wuyan’s voice was lazy as he said in a leisurely manner, “this wedding dress doesn’t suit you that well, it’s ugly.”

At the same time as the voice sounded, Shen Wanqing felt the demonic power attached to her body loosen.

She turned her head.

She didn’t know when Xie Wuyan had sat on the beam of the room, resting the back of his head, looking her up and down as if he was watching a play: “Will you poke your nose into other people’s matters again?”

…So he found out a long time ago.

Shen Wanqing choked speechlessly: “So you followed their act?”

“Yeah,” Xie Wuyan said while dragging his words, “to see how embarrassing you guys can be.”

Shen Wanqing’s pride did not allow her to be laughed at like this: “I also discovered things were wrong!”

Xie Wuyan: “Oh, I was earlier than you.”

Shen Wanqing: “The nature of it is different!”

Xie Wuyan: “I was earlier than you.”

The “Mountain God” on the side tried to speak several times but was interrupted.

His demonic spirit wandered around the temple several times, and found that the two people were too busy quarrelling to even pay attention to him, so he unconsciously became a little angry.

What’s the meaning of this?

Looking down on him?

Everytime the “Mountain God” was unhappy, he would make a big move.

His target of attack was very clear. Compared to Xie Wuyan, a dangerous figure who entered this place without him noticing at all, Shen Wanqing was obviously the easier target.

All the demonic energy gathered into a ball and struck towards her direction with an extremely strong air current, smashing the surrounding pillars into pieces.

“Boom!”

 That power seemed to have hit an extremely hard barrier, and it fell apart in an instant.

Xie Wuyan clasped Shen Wanqing’s waist with his right hand, pulled her forwards towards him, and then frowned, “Have you gained weight?”

Shen Wanqing: “…you don’t have to give your acceptance speech at this moment in time, thank you.”

—

[Translator’s Note: Don’t we love our FL and ML bickering at dangerous times haha!!]